


Civic Duty

by vault_tec



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, F/M, Gross 50's morals, Slow Burn, Vault 101
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-11 21:21:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 22,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4452836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vault_tec/pseuds/vault_tec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slightly AU. The populace of Vault 101 is dwindling fast, but (luckily?) Overseer Almodovar has a breeding plan for the Class of 2274. "Children Are The Future. Good Citizens Raising Good Citizens."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know this has been done before, but this is just my take on it! Rating will change in later chapers for adult themes and such.  
> For the Fallout Kink Meme.  
> Original prompt: Overseer Almodovar realizes that the Vault is running out of little tiny baby Vaulties and the Vault is running the risk of being under populated. Not to fear! The Overseer, being mature and totally not driven batshit insane by power, decides to force all the Vault kids who are of age into marriage. He decides to match the kids up by genetic compatibility or something. Guess what? This results in everyone being paired up with the least compatible people.

**1.**

/\

Jan really hoped it would be Freddie.

She could get by alright with him; they had gone steady for a whole month and three weeks when they were fifteen, and it had been fine before those Tunnel Snakes had ruined it. Freddie had really wanted to be a member for a reason she could not understand, but that she put down to a combination of him being none too bright and to being the only boy in their class who wasn't included in the gang. Every day he would follow them around, lurking near their hangouts, trying to get in on the conversation, on the action, on anything they would let him be included in. And once those greasy hoods had gotten wind of their relationship, Butch had said he could join _if_  he broke up with her in class.

And poor gullible Freddie had done just that after lunch had ended and everyone was filing back to their seats. She remembered it so vividly; she guessed she must still be hurting about it deep down. It had been their seven week anniversary and she had cried in front of everyone. Butch had tripped her up when she tried to run away. ("Have a nice trip, see you next fall  _Nosebleed_.") Funnily enough, she'd busted her nose pretty badly on a desk leg.

Jan had been upset about that for a long time - even though she was a  _nice_  girl with a forgiving nature, and never held grudges against the people she liked. Freddie had apologised after, when he wasn't with his new friends, and she had publicly forgiven him; on the inside though, she was still pretty sore about the whole thing. But in light of recent events, she hoped it would Freddie she got partnered up with. The only problem he had was that he wasn't too sharp and, considering her other options, that wasn't much of a problem at all. He was sweet enough, kind in his own way and gentle. When they went steady for that whole month and three weeks, he'd treated her well enough, he'd respected her boundaries, he hadn't forced her to do anything she didn't want to do when they kissed that one time.

She could marry him, it wouldn't be a problem. She could give him as many children as the Overseer wanted them to have, it really wouldn't be a problem. As long as it was him.

 _Please please please let it be Freddie,_ it was like a prayer in her head, repeated over and over again. The other options were not so pleasant to consider. The other options could be dangerous.

Jan glanced at Amata sitting beside her. Her friend's hazel eyes were wide, and her full lips were pressed thin. She looked as scared as Jan felt. Never before had she understood the analogy 'like a rabbit caught in headlights' so perfectly; this was a snare none of them could escape unscathed.

Wordlessly, Jan reached out and took her hand. Amata gripped her tightly, and they sat in silence, clinging to each other. It was a small comfort.

There was a rumble of low chatter through the Atrium, where they gathered and sat in uniform little lines, waiting for the Overseer to take to the stage. Anticipation and fear bubbled under the surface, and Jan was worried that she was going to be sick. She hoped that if she was sick, it happened when the Overseer walked past her so that she could regurgitate her lunch on his shoes.

It would serve him right for all this. And for all the waiting.

/\

It had been the week before the infamous G.O.A.T, with tensions running high and the end of school looming ever closer, they had all been rowdier than normal. Even Amata had been disruptive, swivelling all the way around in her seat to talk to Jan. Brotch had not been amused by all the laughter and chatter going on while he was trying to teach them.

"Alright, settle down folks, that's enough," he said, curtly, trying to be heard above the babble. "You only have to listen to me for a little while longer, so please, if we could just  _focus_. This is important stuff."

It certainly had not been important. It was so completely unimportant that Jan could no longer remember what he had been trying to teach them. The following half an hour overshadowed everything else in her mind.

The Overseer had materialised suddenly in the doorway, emerging like a vampire from a Pre-War monster flick.

"Ah, Overseer Almodovar, to what do we owe the pleasure?" Brotch reserved a particularly sardonic tone for the Overseer, and it always brought a smirk to Jan's face. Mr Brotch was the only adult she had ever met who was openly insolent to the Overseer's face, it made her laugh but it also made her feel strangely scandalised.

The Overseer was shuffling a few notes in his hands - if he picked up on the slight, he had chosen to ignore it. "I won't take up much of your time Edwin. I need to address the class." He went and stood in the illumination of the projector.

There were a few disconcerted mutters; Jan caught Amata's eye and mouthed 'what's this?'. Her friend had just shrugged and shaken her head; it wasn't a lie either, Jan always knew when Amata was lying because she was so bad at it. It can't have been good if his own daughter didn't know, Amata was the most in-the-loop person in the whole vault.

The Overseer cleared his throat. "Good morning students, I have an official Vault announcement to make." He paused, and Jan could have sworn it was for dramatic effect.  _Pompous bastard_  - she could think it, even if she couldn't say it out loud. "As I'm sure you are aware, the population of our fair community has dwindled in recent years. Why, as I stand before you today, only eight young faces look back at me. I'm sure you can join me in admitting that this is a serious issue. And, indeed, it is on your youthful shoulders the future of Vault 101 rests."

Another pause. Jan's throat began to feel tight - she didn't like the direction this announcement was taking, it felt too serious. She tried to catch Amata's eye again, but she had her sights thoroughly trained on her father and she looked worried. The silence in the classroom was so intense you could have heard a pin drop.

"Measures must be taken to ensure we don't fade away completely. Of course, Vault-Tec left behind a plan for just the situation we find ourselves in now. Now, there will be certain things we will require of all you gathered here today. This afternoon you will all be granted time off from class to report to the clinic for a physical examination. You will also be required to give a sample of blood for genetic screening."

More silence. Jan shot a quick look around the room, from what she could see in her peripheral vision, people had come to the same conclusion as she had. It was easy to see where this was going. She was surprised by this turn of events, but not horrified. In a twisted way, it kind of made sense.

"Now, the screening will take a while to yield results. But when those results are correlated, you will be assigned a partner based on your genetic profile-"

Suddenly, Brotch got to his feet behind his desk. He looked stricken; he actually looked more afraid than his group of students. "You can't be serious, Alphonse. They're only sixteen, they're children!"

The look the Overseer gave him went beyond withering. "Edwin sit down. Perhaps if you had done your duty a few years ago like the rest of us, these measures wouldn't be necessary." There was a silent power struggle as Brotch tried to stare him down.

After a few moments the brow-beaten teacher slipped back into his seat behind the desk.

The Overseer cleared his throat again and resumed. "You will be assigned a partner based on your genetic profile. This will be to promote genetic diversity and health in the offspring your union will produce. Now, to promote reproductive activity, you and your partner will be given your own apartment and double ration coupons will be given for the duration of the pregnancy as an incentive." The Overseer folded up his notes and slipped them into the pocket of his jumpsuit. "Any questions?"

A brittle silence descended.

Jan raised her hand uncertainly.

"Yes, Janet."

"This is mandatory?" She was surprised by how shrill her own voice sounded. "We have to? We absolutely have to?"

The Overseer frowned with very obvious disapproval. He had never liked her much, and she had never understood why. "Absolutely. Procreation is your Civic Duty." Ah yes, one of the commandments of Vault life. That had been drilled into their brains from a very young age – but to Jan, the idea of having children of her own had always seemed so abstract, like it would happen to another Jan in a different time. "The idea may be daunting to you now, but you are all capable young people. I'm sure you will find parenthood to be its own reward."

Jan felt numb. Not scared, not yet, the fear would come later.  _Mom died giving birth to me_ , the thought was an unwelcome intrusion and it made her blood run cold.

"This is bullshit." Always the hard-ass, Butch piped up from the back of the room. It seemed that all his bravado masked something else, and the crack in his voice spoke of uncertainty.

"No, Mr DeLoria, this is just the bare minimum of what the Vault requires of you."

"No, it's bullshit," he repeated, but in a lower voice, more to himself than anything. It was difficult to miss the dangerous look The Overseer shot his way. It was a look that said 'don't push your luck' and Butch shut up real quick.

A few more moments of silence followed. The Overseer slowly combed over the classroom with his eyes, daring someone to say anything else. No one did, they averted their eyes and kept their mouths shut. "Excellent. You will all be required to report to the clinic by one o'clock this afternoon, for the physical and blood sample. Any truants or late comers will be dealt with by vault security." The threat was implicit.

With that, the almighty one glided out of the classroom. Brotch paused and for a moment it looked like he was going to say something, but whatever it was died on his tongue and he started to rustle the papers on his desk instead.

Tense chatter began. Jan poked Amata on the shoulder with her pen. She was pointedly ignored; Amata's hands were pressed to her sides, fists clenched so tight that the knuckles were white. Jan knew to leave her alone when she got like that.

After a while, Brotch resumed teaching and this time he didn't seem all that bothered about who was listening and who wasn't. Jan phased in and out on what he said, her mind a confused babble.

The idea of having children was not the thing that was worrying her most right now – for as long as she could remember it had been made abundantly clear that it was expected, and she had accepted that because she had never been presented with any other option – it was the idea that she would not get to pick who the father was. Now, the Overseer had been right, the population of the vault was low, but she'd always expected to find a partner on her own terms. She had read the Pre-war novels. You were supposed to marry someone you loved.

But perhaps that was just her being sentimental.

Jan spent the rest of the lesson coming to terms with the fact that her future was completely out of her own control. And then, after class finished, she reported to the clinic with everyone else like a good little vault dweller.

* * *

Jan had practically grown up in the clinic, medical stuff had never phased her in the slightest; some people were put off by the cloying clinical smell of disinfectant but to her it smelled like home. This time, however, she found herself going a little light headed as James sunk the needle into her forearm. She watched her blood fill the cylinder and cursed it. That wasn't just any old blood sample, it was the rest of her life. She wished she could smash it.

"Daddy, did you know this was going to happen?" There had been a wobble in her voice when she spoke and now the clinic blurred around her as tears threatened to spill. Jan had cried a lot when she was little and it had made her an easy target. She tried to wipe her eyes subtly before her father saw.

James let out a long sigh before he answered. "No, of course not, sweetie. I'm just as surprised as you are." James had a convincing tone, but the fact that he wouldn't meet her eye told her all she needed to know. He quickly turned his back to her to finish up with her sample.

"I know you're worried Janny. But, unfortunately there's nothing I can do. The Overseer was very insistent that this was the best thing for the future of the vault." He paused, and turned to look at her with a pained expression. "It's for the best." He tried to smile, but it came over as thin and unconvincing. "Look, it'll take a long, long time to finish up these tests, it's not like we're working with specialist technology here. So you don't have to worry about it for a while."

He ran a gloved hand affectionately over her amber hair, and then pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. "I don't want this distracting you from the G.O.A.T, that's more important than anything else at this point."

"I don't want to take that stupid exam either. It's an unfair system of testing. What if want to chose my career instead of having it chosen for me?"

He chuckled, but his eyes looked sad. "Don't start with that radical talk around the Overseer, he'll have my head. We all have to do things we don't want to. Now, run along sweetie, I've got a lot more blood to take."

* * *

Jan had gone over to Amata's the next night. She liked Amata's room, there was definitely perks to being the Overseers daughter: she had Pre-war records and a record player and the Nuka-cola they had in the fridge was still carbonated. The Overseer always said he afforded himself no extra luxuries just for his position, but he was evidently a big fat liar.

Amata was the only person Jan knew who owned a record player, everyone else had to listen to the Vault PA system on their radios, and the fact that they weren't allowed to  _talk_  about the record player in front of anyone else made it abundantly clear that this was just the Overseer's daughter being spoiled.

Jan was jealous, naturally, but she kept her mouth shut about it. She liked listening to Amata's Peggy Lee records, and she wasn't about to jeopardise her listening privileges by blabbing about special treatment to the rest of the vault.

It was in the middle of one of those very records that Amata dropped the huge revelation. They had both been laying on their stomachs on the floor, bopping along to the music with a Pre-war magazine, when Amata rolled to face her, hand propped up under her chin. "Hey Janny, I've been thinking about this plan."

Jan took a careful sip of Nuka-cola through a straw. She made a non-committal noise; she really didn't want to talk about this. Or think about it. She just wanted to dance around and pretend everything was still ok. They could still get away with pretending for now.

"And I've been thinking about the whole partnering up thing." Amata continued, oblivious to her friends discomfort. "I'm scared Jan. I mean, just think about it for a second: one of us is going to end up with Wally, for sure."

It hit her like a punch to the gullet. Amata was right; there were only four girls in their class, one of them was his sister, and Christine was his cousin (although she'd heard some pretty colourful rumours about them anyway). For the sake of genetic diversity, it would have to be one of them. Imagine: married to a Tunnel Snake!

Jan could have slapped herself for not considering it sooner. Wally could be dangerous; he had a coldness in him, it radiated out of his eyes and you could tell that he really enjoyed it when he hurt you. Hell, ending up with any of those Tunnel Snakes would be awful. And she hadn't even considered it until this very moment.

Jan chewed her lip. "Can your dad really make us do this, Amata?" The question sounded weak out loud, and she already knew the answer.

"You  _know_  he can, Jan."

Jan gave a deep sigh, her chest getting tight with renewed panic. It was true. There was nothing they could do to change this situation. But they could buckle through it together as friends. Comradery made it a little better. Still, Jan could feel herself going pale and she slumped forward to let her hot forehead come to rest on the cool metal of the floor. She started to quietly do the breathing exercises her father had taught her to quell the sudden burst of anxiety.

Amata reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze. "Let's just hope he gets eaten by radroaches or something." It was a weak joke, and there was no glimmer of amusement in Amata's face when she said it, but the attempt at humour was appreciated.

Jan managed a queasy smile. "It's a nice thought, Amata. But with our luck? We'll probably end up both married to him. Like those Mormons or something." They both had a weak giggle at that, even though it wasn't even remotely funny.

"We'll be ok though, won't we?"

With a deep breath, Janet summoned all the confidence she didn't feel. "We'll be ok. We probably won't find out for ages anyway. I'll bet you we'll forget about it soon enough."

/\

Of course, they had not forgotten about it. Jan had worried about it constantly and she felt that Amata had done the same, but it was never spoken about. No one else spoke about it either; it seemed to be the general consensus that if you spoke about the plan, you gave it the power to exist. Everyone was afraid of it and the misery it would cause, but everyone would do as the Overseer asked.

That was just the way things were in Vault 101.

So for a whole year and seven months, the vault populace had waited with baited breath. The students had passed their G.O.A.T and waited. They had gone to prom and waited. They had started their careers and waited. They had pretended everything was fine and waited. Life had slipped into a bland routine and they waited and waited and waited and waited.

Then, this morning the announcement had finally come over the intercom and Jan had almost thought it was a relief until she remembered that her life was about to end. They had filed into the atrium and they had sat and they had waited some more.

This was finally it.


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews will always be appreciated! Please tell me honestly what you think so far!

**2**.

/\

Finally, after what felt like a small eternity, the Overseer made his entrance, followed by James and Jonas.

Jan and Amata were sat at the back so they got a good view of the grim procession. It was peculiar how the rows of people quieted when they saw them, the air was electric with anticipation. Jan caught Jonas' eye and the smile he gave her was both sad and apologetic. Her stomach roiled again with full force – that look was not a good look, which could only mean one thing: she was in trouble.

Of course, Jan had begged her father for news almost every day when she first started interning at the clinic, but he had been mute and had got steadily more irritated with the more times she asked him. It was quite an accomplishment, her father had always been patient with her as she grew up, and because of that she was not used to being denied. Eventually, he had retreated from her almost entirely, locking himself in his office for hours and hours on end – Jan assumed to work on this partnership project – and he left her tutelage (and unending questions) almost entirely to Jonas.

So she had started to pester Jonas instead. He just laughed her off. That was one thing about Jonas that she loved, his easy humour. He had been a constant in her life and she loved him dearly. She saw him like an uncle, or maybe a big brother was more apt – he was a source of semi-paternal support when her father was too busy to deal with her.

After months of Jan pestering him, he had promised that when the day came, he'd give as many hints as he possibly could.

And that sorry look had said everything Jan needed to know.

The Overseer had reached the little impromptu stage that had been erected before the rows of seats. He tapped the microphone and Jan flinched at the hideous whine of feedback. "Is everyone here?" He didn't need a microphone in all honesty, his voice would have carried easily. The entire population of vault 101 made up a very small group indeed.

There were four empty seats a couple rows from the back. The Overseer was glaring at them with very apparent annoyance. "Who's missing?" He demanded. "The time was made very clear in the announcement, we all have responsibilities to be getting on with."

As if on que, the Tunnel Snakes entered with slow swagger, completely casual and nonplussed. Jan couldn't help but roll her eyes; they were so full of themselves, so arrogant, so cliché. Not much made her angry in life, she had been told that she was very quiet and passive, but the fact they got away with such blatant disrespect really made her blood boil.

And Freddie was with them, trailing at the back and looking a damn sight more apologetic, but still there. Such a shame, such a waste, and it still brought a bitter taste that he was only there because of her humiliation.

Still. ' _Please let it be Freddie.'_

Almost like he could hear her thoughts, he looked up and their eyes connected. He had always had such pretty eyes, a rich dark brown flecked with hazel, haloed by long thick lashes. Eyes like a teenage dream.

As they were shuffling to their seats, Freddie gave her a shy smile and a little wave. Amata tutted loudly and pulled her hand away from her friend when Jan returned the pleasantry with a shy smile – Amata had a prodigious talent for holding grudges, and she hated Freddie as much as any of the other Tunnel Snakes after what he had done when they were fifteen.

Jan tucked a strand of fly-away hair behind her ear and looked at the ground with what she hoped was a coy and shy expression. Freddie's grin widened a little as he sat down and swivelled in his seat. He waited until she looked back up and mouthed 'Hi'.

Jan mouthed back 'Hey'.

'How're you?'

'Ok. You?'

Freddie was about to reply when he was shoved roughly. "Hey, don't fucking do that, man." Butch's voice carried well through the silent atrium and everyone turned to look. Jan snapped her head to look in the other direction, trying to appear like she wasn't involved at all.

"Is that is the end of all the interruptions?" The Overseer said, voice accompanied by a low whine of feedback. "Good, then you all know why I have gathered here today. I apologise for such a delay, there were a few setbacks." He sent a pointed look at James, who glared right back. "But we've finally come up with the results of the tests and have correlated the data accordingly. We finally have the list of partners."

Jan shifted in her seat, dread building and making her feel like her lungs were being crushed. She wiped her sweaty palms on her jumpsuit in the most casual way possible so that Amata wouldn't pick up on it; she didn't want to look as weak as she felt. As long as she looked strong, she was strong.

"So, I will quickly run over the ground rules of this plan before I pass over to our good doctor. This partnership will be compulsory until you have filled your quota of children, which has been projected for us by the computer system. The quota being met is essential to the continuation of the Vault. This quota will be the same for all couples, the requirement being that you produce the minimum of four offspring, two girls and two boys."

There was a murmur of dissent in the ranks of the gathered Vault dwellers, and a voice (Jan thought it sounded like Susie Mack) asked "Well, you can't, like, choose what kind of baby you have. How is that supposed to work?"

The Overseer smiled grimly. "Well, you just keep trying. Say you produce three daughters, because you have not met the quota, you keep having more children until you produce two boys. It's really very simple Miss Mack."

Jan glanced around, to gage everyone else's reactions, to see if they felt the same way she did – horrified yet resigned. She scanned a sea of blank faces, hard to read yet burning in the eyes. Only the adults looked unsurprised, but there was a hint of guilt to their movements, they all looked at the floor, or at their hands, or basically anywhere but their doomed children. Even James was guilty of it, he has currently busying himself with his pages of notes, reading it like he had never seen the information before in his life.

As always, it seemed the Tunnel Snakes were the only ones with the guts to voice how they really felt. Unfortunately, the thing on their minds was vastly different to everyone else. It was embarrassing to hear them, talking in stage whispers, about all the unprotected sex they would be having, Butch loudest and proudest of all. Jan felt a blush creeping over her face just to hear them.

' _Pigs,'_ she thought bitterly. ' _This isn't something to joke about.'_

The Overseer, cleared his throat and continued, clearly trying to ignore and speak over the gross chatter. "After the quota is met, you will not be expected to produce any more children. However, you will not be able to dissolve the partnership or have children with any other vault members, as this may lead to genetic confusion in the future. Of course, the children you produce will also have partners assigned to them and they will also be given a quota to promote healthy population growth. This process will continue until such a time that the vault population is thriving."

' _Quite honestly,'_  Jan thought bitterly, ' _I don't care about what my children will have to do. They don't exist yet, and I do. I just want to know what level of torment you're going to cause me, you absolute bastard.'_

She shot a quick look around; she always felt weirdly paranoid when she thought ill of the Overseer. It just wasn't done, you never questioned him – he was indisputably the most important person in Vault 101; he who shelters us from the harshness of the atomic wasteland, and to whom they owe everything they have, including their lives. Thank you Overseer!

"An apartment will be provided for you and your partner after you have signed the marriage documents, and a family sized apartment will be provided once you have conceived. As I have previously stated, double ration coupons will be provided once pregnancy has been medically confirmed as another great incentive." He paused, clearly waiting for a titter of approval. He was met with silence. Silence was the only form of rebellion they had at this point. Clearly annoyed, he continued: "After the announcement, I will give out the date you and your partner will be required to attend my office to sign documents and pick up door keys."

The Overseer stepped aside and James, with visible apprehension, stepped up to the podium. He looked tired, Jan realised suddenly. She saw him every day without really looking at him. Her father had suddenly turned into a weathered middle aged man with worry lines and sunken eyes. It was a little jarring to see the man who had raised her, almost singlehandedly, looking so worn and brow-beaten.

"Good afternoon." James was shuffling his notes so that he didn't have to look at anyone. It was an old avoidance technique he always used when he was uncomfortable and Jan knew it well. She had been a very inquisitive child, when no one else was around, and she had asked a lot of awkward questions. "Now, these pairings have been determined by a purely on a genetic basis and have been calculated by a computer for us."

The way he said it made it sound like an apology. Amata reached for her friend's hand again, clearly forgetting that she was angry with her for talking to Freddie.

"Now, I have the list here, and I'll just read it in alphabetical order." Jonas passed him a clipboard and there was another brief moment of tense silence as he shuffled the new notes. He was stalling. "Almodovar, Amata-"Jan gave her hand a supportive squeeze, "- will be paired with Mack, Wally."

Amata's breath came out in a defeated whoosh. Jan felt a small lurch of relief followed by a bigger rush of confusion. If Amata was with Wally, why had Jonas looked at her like that? Amata's grip slackened, so Jan released her hand, sending her the most comforting and apologetic look she could muster. She was ignored.

Jan glanced up at The Overseer. His face was as blank and stoic as always, it honestly appeared that he didn't seem to care. Amata had always said he was a guarded man, perhaps she was just not seeing what he was feeling?

She doubted it. He was the sort of man that forced teenagers into marriage, so it followed that he was the sort of man who didn't care at all about his daughter. But Amata had a record player in her room that told a different story, a story of paternal devotion. Would he have really sacrificed his daughter's happiness for the vault? What sort of father would do that?

James paused again, rustling those damn notes. When he spoke again, his voice was very soft. "DeLoria, Butch will be partnered with Harris, Janet."

' _Oh.'_

Jan went suddenly cold and numb all over. ' _Oh.'_  She couldn't pretend to be completely surprised, she had had a long time to consider her options, and she'd thought about this very situation a couple of times. It had been one of those 'worst case scenarios' but she'd considered it. Butch was her childhood bully, he had made her life a living hell while they were growing up. How fitting that he was going to make her adult life hell too.

She could not pretend that she was not worried. He had still been throwing her into lockers when they were sixteen, and he had punched her when they were children – he had shown many times that not only could he be violent, but that he could be violent towards her. Though, admittedly, it had been a long time since he had intentionally bloodied her nose in gym class.

She looked up and finally caught eyes with her father and he looked as sorry as she had ever seen him in her life. She understood. He couldn't have done anything about it. But maybe he should have  _tried_.

He rattled off the other two pairings, but it wasn't very interesting to her now. Christine Kendall was to be with Paul Hannon and Freddie Gomez had the pleasure of being with Suzie Mack. Jan couldn't care less, her head was filled with visions of a legion of children with Butch's face.

Babies in diapers playing with switchblades, babies with slicked back pompadour hair, babies who's first word would be 'fuck', babies that would grow up thinking their mother's first name was Nosebleed.

Babies that would grow up hating her as much as their father did.

Jan looked over to Butch to gauge his reaction but it was impossible to judge emotion from the back of someone's head. She noticed how his slick, greasy hair glistened in the harsh lighting and she also noticed that Suzie had turned all the way around in her chair to give her a death glare. Those two had been off-and-on since they were sixteen, and judging by the look on Suzie's face, they were back on right now.

She had murder in her eyes like Jan had specifically asked for this. If she felt that badly about it, Jan really wouldn't mind swapping partners. It wouldn't be a problem.

' _Yeah right. The almighty Overseer Almodovar was willing to do this to his own daughter, what makes you think he'll tweak the rules for you? You, who he's never liked, never approved of. You were never good enough to be friends with Amata, and he just married her off to one of the biggest delinquents in the vault. This is it Janny. You better suck it up and get on with it._ '

The Overseer reclaimed the microphone. "Ok, thank you Doctor Harris. Now, you will be required to attend a meeting in my office next Friday." Jan managed a thin smile at that. She wished she could give a bitter laugh but it seemed like too much effort now. Of course her wedding would be on her birthday. Of course. "Come first thing in the morning and I will sort through you alphabetically."

As abruptly as that, the announcement was done.

Jan was one of the first to her feet. She didn't want to talk to anyone, or see anyone, or be anywhere that wasn't hiding in bed. Amata clearly had the same idea, as they both silently got to their feet and began to shuffle past the people who were still seated. No one seemed to be saying much, they just sat there, getting in the way, looking a little dazed.

Jan reached the end of the row and came face to face with the last person she wanted to see at that moment. His icy blue eyes were hard and raging, and she had to steady herself at such sudden animosity. He didn't say anything to her as he stormed past, boots stomping loudly, but he didn't have to.

That look had said it all.

Jan went straight home to bed. There was nothing more comforting than enveloping herself in the blankets like a cocoon; a warm cocoon of darkness where nothing was real and she could do anything she wanted because she wasn't limited to what the Overseer wanted.

She tried not to think. Her father came in to see her and offer empty words of comfort but she ignored him. He had betrayed her, in a fashion.

Later, completely overwhelmed by her fate, she allowed herself the luxury of crying herself to sleep. It felt good to be self-indulgent when no one else could see her and judge her for begrudging her duty.


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Birthday Jan, you're getting married to your childhood bully!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you so much for your interest in my trash ramblings.

**3.**

/\

Her wedding day was the bleakest day of her life. It was also the  _worst birthday ever._

Jan had grown up reading Pre-war novels, so she knew how it was supposed to go: a beautiful white dress, a blushing bride, a jovial priest administering the vows in an elegant church, a groom who looks like he actually wants to be there. Family and friends filling the pews, the air of celebration, the anticipation of a future of mutual joy and comfort. Tears of happiness all around.

The tears in her eyes were not from happiness; she was desperately trying to hold them back by tilting her head upwards. She was wearing yesterday's jumpsuit because she had run out of clean ones. Butch looked completely disgusted, he kept glowering at her out of the corner of his eye; not a threat, but a statement: 'I can't believe I'm ending up with  _you_.' The Overseer's office did not quite have the charm of a quaint, small town church, either.

Jan mused that the Overseer should probably ban or incinerate those stupid Pre-war books. It was giving people the wrong idea about marriage.

Jan wished she was back in bed. Her own bed, in the apartment she grew up in. Waking up this morning had been soul crushing. She had woken up early too, her apprehension rousing her at half past five in the morning. Sleep had eluded her from that point, even her old fail safe – the black-out human cocoon – hadn't soothed her.

So Jan had gotten up and paced her room, trying to keep the bad thoughts out. But, like bad thoughts always do, they lingered in the forefront of her mind, and no amount of singing or reading could distract from the fact that she was marrying her childhood bully in a matter of hours.

She knew for a fact she wasn't going to be happy, and quite honestly that was fine, she just didn't want to get hurt by the guy. Butch hadn't hit her since they were little kids, but that didn't mean much, he was well known for getting into fights, for pulling his Toothpick on anyone who looked at him the wrong way and (having developed the same disposition as his mother) he got awful rowdy when he was drunk.

It was worrying. He was a good five inches taller than her, stockier, stronger in every way. Overpowering her would be easy for him. She could imagine him doing it all the time, over little things, or even over nothing at all, using her face as an outlet for all his anger.

Jan had no means to protect herself, if it came to that – and there was no doubt in her mind that it  _would_  eventually come to that. Of course she had the BB gun, she was good with that weapon and it honestly felt like an extension of her own arm at this point. It could dispatch a radroach at twenty paces, but could it really defend her against a raging husband?

Not really. It would leave a bruise, it would sting him. It would sting even more if she aimed for his balls. That made her smile.

Then there was the problem of getting the weapon into the apartment without him seeing it, the issue of hiding it in a place where it wouldn't be discovered but would be close at hand if ( _when_ ) she needed it. It was obvious she hadto take it with her, it was in her best interests, but  _how how how how_?

This frantic problem solving took her up to half past six in the morning, and by then Jan had worked herself up into a full blown panic.

Even if he never hurt her (unlikely) she still had to procreate with that delinquent. That scared her too. She was a good girl, she was a  _decent_ girl and she had been saving herself for something special. Butch Deloria was not anything special and the thought of his hands on her made her want to vomit. It was a slow, nervous sick feeling that made her feel clammy all over and made her hands shake.

Jan didn't have a choice of course, the Overseer had decided and his word was law. Her fate had been decreed by a tyrant and a computer system.

' _You better suck it up, buttercup._ ' Her own internal monologue sounded weak even to her. She did not want to suck it up, it just wasn't  _fair_.

By the time her father found her, at half past seven in the morning, she was curled up, back in her bed, weeping softly.

"Happy Birthday sweetheart!" He tried to sound cheery, but his voice was strained.

She had honestly forgotten it was her birthday today. Truly, it was the last thing on her mind. Oh yes, how wonderful! She was finally an adult, who could live her own life, and make her own choices – oh wait, never mind.

Her sobbing intensified. She knew she was being overly self-indulgent, but she felt like she had earned the privilege somehow. It wasn't a very Vault 101 way of thinking; she hadn't put in the work to earn anything, yet here she was.

The edge of her bed dipped as her father sat beside her. He began to rub slow, soothing circles on her lower back, a pacifying thing that reminded her of being little and being able to leech all of the comfort in the world from her daddy. She snuffled, wiped her teary face on her pillow and lifted her head to look at him.

"Look, sweetheart, I know you're scared and I'm sorry that it's all come to this." James paused, and sighed deeply. "I've always wanted what was best for you, your mother did too. And believe me when I say that you are safer in here with Butch than you would ever be on the outside."

Jan didn't see what that had to do with anything. The outside wouldn't even be habitable for the next three hundred years – she'd heard it on the vault PA system. Given the choice between the two, she'd be inclined to agree with him. It's better to stick with the devil you know.

James pressed his mouth into a thin line. "But all of that doesn't change the fact that Butch is a bully, and a no-good delinquent. I'd rather it was anyone else, but I didn't have any say in the matter."

' _You could have changed the results without anyone noticing._ ' Jan thought bitterly, but she didn't say it out loud because she knew it was a weak argument. The Overseer had never liked her father and he watched everything the good doctor did like a hawk.

"If he ever hurts you – no, if he ever  _tries_  to hurt you," James reached into his lab coat pocket, "then you can always use this." He brought out a bottle of pepper spray. A birthday present, she assumed. Jan almost smiled. She had always admired her father's talent for procuring heavily policed items.

"Now, I know it's not much of a present, Janny, but it'll help keep you safe. That's all I've ever wanted. To keep you safe." James smiled sadly and ruffled his daughter's bouncy ginger hair.

Jan's hair was the curliest hair she had ever seen on anyone, it had a life of its own, and it was oddly textured so that sprung up like a huge halo around her head. She usually kept it scraped up into a bun on the top of her head as that was the only way she could control it, though fly-way hairs were always making their break for freedom – it made her look like a mad scientist, she thought.

"Thank you, Daddy." She took the bottle and slipped it into her pocket, knowing better then to ask where he got it, and beginning to feel a little safer already. Maybe she wouldn't need to take the BB gun, it would be hard to find a place to hide it and she couldn't keep it concealed on her person like she could the pepper spray.

"You've nothing to thank me for, sweetie. I just wish there was another way. Daughters don't just exist to give us grandchildren." He stood up and left her to get ready.

She had lain in bed for a good ten minutes after he left, mulling over what he had said and thanking all the powers in the universe that her father was her father and not someone else.

She had showered quickly, pulled on yesterday's jumpsuit and walked slowly to the Overseer's office, trying to delay the inevitable as much as possible. Unfortunately, Jan couldn't post-pone her wedding forever.

So now she was standing in silence next to Butch, waiting for the Overseer to finish getting the paperwork in order, still blinking back the tears. Jan slipped her hand in her pocket and took strength in the shock of the cold metal of the spray in her sweaty palm.

The Overseer cleared his throat (the sound grating on every last one of her nerves) and looked up. He presented a legally binding document for them both to sign. This was it: no vows, just a signature on a piece of paper. She was presented with the pen first and when she leaned over to add her signature, her eyes scanned over the desk which was littered with official documents. She caught sight of Butch's birth certificate. His middle name was Francis. Jan had to chew the fleshy inside of her cheek to halt a bray of laughter.

The Overseer offered the pen to Butch, and he hesitated, bright blue eyes stormy. "This is still a load of bullshit." He said belligerently, arms folded tightly over his puffed out chest. Butch looked at her, lip curling. "I mean, who'd want to fuck her? You can't make me."

Jan felt herself flush with embarrassment and anger. She tried to bite her tongue, but it was just so difficult to do around him. Jan was quiet by nature, and she hated conflict, but Butch brought out her argumentative streak. "You really are full of it, Butch. You're not anything special, yourself."

Butch rounded on her fully, completely indignant. "I'm the best lookin' guy in here, and you know it. You're lucky to have me to come home to. You're lucky that you're going to be poppin' out little versions of the Butch-man. You better be thankful, Nosebleed." He looked her up and down as he said it, a classic jerk smirk pulling at his lips.

It was true, he was the most  _aesthetically pleasing_  guy around, he looked like a star from those old movies – the leading man in a melodrama – but whatever attractiveness he had was thoroughly cancelled out by his ugly personality.

Jan scrunched up her face with disgust. "As if! I'm not going to be popping out anything. I'm not going to let you touch me, greaseball." Her cheeks were flushed with anger and her fear was momentarily forgotten – this felt familiar, nostalgic, so much like one of their old classroom blow ups.

The Overseer sighed, squeezing the bridge of his nose wearily. "Just sign the paper, Mr Deloria." He pushed the paper towards the younger man and then turned with a disapproving sneer to Jan. "As for you,  _Mrs Deloria_ , you don't have any choice in the matter. It's your duty as a wife to concede your body to your husband. Remember your lessons."

Jan pressed her lips into a thin line. She remembered those lessons very well indeed – all the girls had been taken into a separate room one day when they were all fifteen by Beatrice. It became a bi-weekly lesson, all the girls were taken into another room to watch dated Pre-war films with messages such as 'He may consider himself a Don Juan for having succeeded in getting you to pet, but he will also decide that you're too easy to get' and 'Menstruation is shameful and you should never talk about it'.

They had also been given a delightful little book called The Good Wife's Guide with tips for how to primp, clean and cook for your over-expectant husband. They had read and re-read that damn book so often in class that she could still recite whole passages if pressed.

Jan bit her tongue – the Overseer was right. They had been grooming the girls for the roles of quiet home-makers for a very long time, it was all she knew.

Butch smirked up at her and he added his signature to the paper. Jan didn't like the new gleam in his eyes at all.

Satisfied that the paperwork was finished with, the Overseer allowed himself a small smile as he bestowed some sage advice. "Now, Janet, you must remember that the key to a happy marriage is to love, honour and obey. You must keep that truth close to your heart, and make it your mantra."

He looked like he had just delivered the biggest truth in the universe to her lowly mortal ears and Jan was filled with the urge to laugh in his pompous face; a really deep, satisfying belly laugh. She also wanted to break down in tears. She also want to run far, far away. The Overseer was marrying her off to her childhood bully, and  _that_ was his advice?

' _Thank you Overseer.'_ Jan thought bitterly. She much preferred the idea that 'compromise, communicate and never go to bed angry' was the mantra to go by. But with Butch, that was an impossibility.

The Overseer opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a clear plastic bag, it was bulging with rings. The metal was dull and silver; no golden wedding bands for them. Vault-Tec approved rings were made out of titanium, as that metal was hardest and most durable, so the bands could be worn by residents in any field of work, even engineers.

The Overseer opened the bag. "Sift through and find one in your size. Quickly though, I have another appointment in five minutes."

* * *

The apartments granted to all the 'newly-weds' were three levels lower than the rest of the living spaces, in a part of the vault that had not been inhabited in a long time. The spaces were small, musty and badly maintained. The vault had always been cold but the subterranean chill was much more apparent in here than upstairs. Out of curiosity, Jan lifted up her hand to the air-recycling unit and she could feel that the air being blown out was cold.

' _So this is being done on purpose? Why? What does the Overseer hope to gain? Does he honestly think a little cold air is going to make everyone jump into bed with each other?'_ Jan mused, exploring her new home. Alone.

Butch had dumped his box of belongings on the bed and abruptly left, with no explanation as to where he was going or when he'd be back. Not like she  _cared_  though, she much preferred being alone to being with her new husband.

That was a weird thought. Husband. She pushed it out of her mind because it was making her feel strange.

The living room and kitchen had been combined into one room in her ( _their_ ) apartment, and they hadn't been given much in the way of furniture. One threadbare couch was pressed up against the farthest wall, with a stained coffee table in front of it, and on the other side of the room there was a fridge and a microwave, in a bad state of disrepair, perched on what appeared to be a bed-side table.

The bathroom was a grimy cube, containing only a toilet, a sink and a cracked mirror. Showers would have to be taken communally.

The bedroom was perhaps the bleakest thing. The room was dominated by a poster, which hung above the bed (rickety, stained, too small to be a double, too big to be a single) with the phrase, printed all in capitals, 'CHILDREN ARE THE FUTURE, GOOD CITIZENS RAISING GOOD CITIZENS'.

There had been a similar poster in the apartment she grew up in, but it had been smaller. She'd asked about it when she was small and still vocal in her curiosity; that had been the first time she heard about the birds and the bees.

That poster had been so much less ominous when she had been a child.

Now it almost seemed to be a command. You  _will_  procreate good citizen, lay back and spread your legs so  _the future_ may come forth.

Jan turned away from it, suddenly chilled to the bone. The fear was creeping back into her.

/\

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honest reviews are always appreciated! In the next chapter: the wedding night!


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all your support. It really does make me smile to read your reviews! So in this chapter: Butch is a gross teenage boy and Jan is a prude!

**4.**

/\

Jan glowered at herself in the grimy little mirror, trying to will away the anxious thrumming of her heart and the perceptible shake of her hands. Her dusky skin looked pale and washed out under the florescent lighting and she could see the pulse point at her neck throbbing visibly. Jan glared, beyond annoyed at herself. Even her breathing exercises weren't working for her this time.

She tried to push all thoughts out of her racing mind by focusing in on her face. The power of her own fear was so great that it didn't look like her own face anymore.

Jan had always struck a startling resemblance to her father, but it had never been as obvious to her as this moment. The almost cat-like curve of the lips, the button nose, and the high-rise of her brow – she even had a mole on her neck in the same place as him. It was a feminine James staring back at her from the mirror, her face split by the jagged crack, and Jan started to feel a little disconnected from her own body.

Nothing about her was her own, she felt. She had her father's face, and had stolen her mother's eyes. Strange eyes they were too, almond in shape and the same vibrant amber as her wild hair. It had always felt strange, when she was growing up, for her father to tell her that she had her mother's eyes.

It made them feel like they never belonged to her. That she was viewing the world with something she'd stolen.

Jan had taken everything from her mother and the guilt of that was something that ran deep within her. The guilt of depriving her father of the wife he loved more than anything, the guilt of taking a beautiful and talented woman from the world, and the guilt of being a very poor replacement indeed. It was hard, too, to grow up without a mom.

That, she figured, was why she gravitated to Amata when she was younger, they were kindred in the sense that she could go and play in Amata' apartment without being plagued by jealousy. Growing up motherless was a very bitter feeling.

Before she had understood that it was all her fault, she had hated her mother for leaving her. James had refused to talk about how Catherine had died for many years, brushing of his inquisitive and hurting daughter. His silence had made her lay blame to the innocent and Jan had been angry with her mother for leaving her alone. Being a headstrong and belligerent kid, she hadn't quite grasped the concept that people usually didn't choose to die and leave their children. She'd gotten so angry that she'd taken the only picture of her parents together – the only picture of her mother she had – and smashed the frame and the glass on the floor.

Her reasoning being that it made no sense to keep it. Why would she want to keep hold of a memento of someone who hadn't had the decency to stick around for her daughter?

Her father had been very upset when he found out. It was one of the few times Jan could remember him shouting at her. And she'd cried for hours because it had felt so  _unfair_  that her father would be angry with her, that he didn't understand her reason. Jan had felt that her anger was justified.

James had sat her down that night and finally told her all the facts; yes, her mother had loved her very much, yes, she had wanted to meet her more than anything else, but she had never really gotten the chance because she had died from complications, but no, no, no, of course it's not your fault Janny.

Jan had been six years old, and that was when her absolute fear of childbirth had begun.

Her mother had  _died_  bringing her into the world.  _Died_. Had it truly been worth it? Jan didn't think it had, she didn't feel worthy of this gift, this ultimate sacrifice sort of situation that she never would have asked of anyone. And the fact that it had happened here in the Vault, with all their technology, with all their equipment…

It just didn't make sense. Jan had never understood how it had been allowed to happen.

Her father had been trying to convince her for years that things had since been improved, things were different back then, the situation was different. Jan had never really understood what he had meant or how that could even be possible. The same equipment that attended her birth was still in the clinic, the same supplies, unless brand new Pre-war medical equipment had a habit of materialising out of thin air. What he said made no sense.

So she was afraid. She was very afraid.

Jan finally looked away from the stranger-face in the mirror. She let the faucet run and splashed cold water onto her face. The icy shock brought her more into herself, affirming her reality and her own body, so when she glanced back up at the mirror, the face looked more like her own again. That brief but intense moment on depersonalisation left her feeling drained and sick, but she would not allow herself to go to bed. Not yet.

She wasn't quite ready. She hadn't talked herself into it.

Though she was get pretty frustrated with herself. Jan quickly checked her pip-boy (noting with a numb feeling that her profile had already changed from Janet Harris to Janet DeLoria) and saw that it was now half past one in the morning – she had locked herself up in the bathroom for over three hours. Just how long was it going to take to psyche herself up? She couldn't spend her wedding night barricaded in the bathroom, as preferable as it may sound. Her sense of self-worth wouldn't allow her to sleep on the grungy looking tile.

Crawling into bed with Butch was not what she wanted, but it would be better than sleeping here. And the couch was not an option either, it was so small that even she could not sleep on it, though she barely reached 5'2, even when she was wearing her chunky, Vault-Tec approved working boots.

She was scared of what would happen in that marital bed, Jan was not ashamed to admit it.

She had a flash-back to Beatrice's bi-weekly lessons, Jan could almost hear the woman's over-sincere voice now. Those classes had basically been a long list of expectations, and the only sex advice they had ever gotten from the whole curriculum had been don't. Beatrice had stood before them with a very earnest look on her face and had said: "Pregnancy outside of marriage is a mistake because it hurts you and the child, your family, and the man who is the father of the child. Only a very irresponsible or immature person can ignore these responsibilities." That had been it, end of lesson.

Jan had overheard Christine Kendall (Christine Hannon now, she supposed) saying that the first time hurt. She was very worried – Jan was a  _decent girl,_  she had preserved her own virginity with all the reverence expected of her; the only experience she had were a few awkward, dry-lipped kisses with Freddie. Three years ago.

She splashed a little more water on her face and then looked her hands. She hadn't been able to find a wedding ring that fit her properly, so the thin band of titanium sat high, an unusual tightness just below her knuckle. She felt that it's chokehold on her finger was somehow symbolic of how she imagined her whole marriage. She hated it, she wished she had had more time to find one that actually fit.

Jan took three deep breath in succession; it was time to stop putting off the inevitable. She finally left the bathroom with nothing to look forward to but pain.

The apartment was dark, she clicked her pip-boy and navigated through by the muted green glow, a tight knot of dread in her stomach. Butch was already in bed, he'd returned five minutes after curfew and she'd run to the bathroom to avoid him. Running and hiding from her husband was not her proudest moment, but she just couldn't stand to look at him.

That, and the fact that she wanted to delay the … consummation of her marriage for as long as possible. Delaying only got you so far however.

The bedroom door opened automatically with a muted hiss, and she moved awkwardly over to the bed, very aware of the dark shape already lying there. She climbed onto the bed a little unsteadily, and the rickety frame shook and groaned at her added weight. Jan could hear her own blood rushing in her ears, as she tried to angle herself so her body didn't touch his – a difficult task in a small bed. She ended up lying on her back, hips twisting awkwardly, legs dangling over the side and her left arm crossed over her chest.

A thick, tense silence descended and it seemed to Jan that the sound of her own unsteady breathing was filling the room.

The springs in the mattress groaned suddenly and loudly as he rolled on his side to face her. She was very aware of his close proximity, of his body heat, of his  _smell_ ; hair pomade and cigarette smoke and a lingering hint of cheap cologne. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek and Jan was glad for the absolute darkness, seeing his face loom so close to her own would have been awkward.

"So, are we gonna do this?" She shivered at the dusky tone in his voice, tickling her ear. He had certainly changed his mind from what he had said in the Overseer's office just that morning.

Jan swallowed, aware of how dry her mouth was. Playing the fool wasn't usually her game – she'd been told several times that she was an insufferable know-it-all – but she couldn't help but hope it would deter him. "Do what?" Her voice sounded thick, and it hurt her throat to talk.

"Fuck."

Jan felt her entire body blush. ' _Oh my God, why'd he have to say it like that?_ ' She thought desperately.

There was something filthy about the word 'fuck'. She could handle 'sex' or 'intercourse' or 'copulate' or anything that made it sound like a cold and clinical act, but there was something about the passion of 'fuck' that made her scream on the inside. Jan had been raised to be a prude, to be a  _decent girl_.

Butch had sat up a little, leaning on his arm, waiting for her answer. Jan swallowed again, face burning. She didn't trust herself to speak, so she made a little 'mmhmm' sound instead. Taking that as his que, he rolled onto her, trapping her under his weight, and latching onto her neck.

Butch was well known for his hickeys, he left them like calling cards to show where he'd been. Jan had a vivid memory of Christine and Suzie getting into a fist fight in the diner the day after prom when they both showed up with twin purple bruises on their necks. It felt strange to be getting one herself though, the suction on her neck was achy. She hadn't expected it to hurt. The moment he pulled away, it felt sore and bruised – it was going to be a big one.

Jan lay there impassively as he began to kiss up her neck, pausing to nip her pulse point, his hands wandering southwards all the while. His kissed burned in a way she had never felt before. If it had been anyone else, it would have felt nice. She couldn't move the past the fact that her childhood bully, who had made her life hell, who had called her ugly on a daily basis and who had made her hate herself, was about to take her virginity.

It should have been someone else. He didn't deserve it.

Butch's lips reached her jawline, he began to move up when suddenly he pulled away – recoiled would be a better word. The dark shape of his head hovered above her, wordless for a moment, and then: "Shit, are you going to be crying the whole time?" He sounded uncertain, and ( _really?)_  a little ashamed.

Numbly Jan brought her hand up to her face, and was surprised when her fingertips brushed over damp cheeks. He must have felt the tears on his lips; she hadn't even realised that she had been crying.

"Sorry." Her voice was small and chagrined.

Jan had promised herself that she would never let Butch see her cry whilst they were joined together by this insane plan. She refused to give him the satisfaction of it, and she'd broken that promise on the very first night. Butch had always made fun of her weepiness, she'd been well known for crying when she was little – she'd cry if she got the wrong answer in class, she'd cry if she got a bad test result, she'd cry if she had to do a presentation in front of people, and, of course, she'd cry whenever he and his gang picked on her. She'd grown out of it by the age of nine (saving her weeping marathons for the seclusion of her own bed) but that had not stopped the constant taunting – 'what're you going to do,  _cry_ on me?'.

He was going to laugh in her face, she just knew it.

To her further surprise, Butch rolled off of her, lying on his back too. "Well," he said with an over-the-top toughness, "whatever. I can't get it up knowing it's you anyway, Nosebleed." She couldn't see his face at all, but she could tell from his voice that he had his trade-mark sneer on. She could visualise it perfectly, it was as familiar to her as the back of her own hand.

He was lying. She had felt him press up against her when he was kissing her neck.

"Ok?" Jan said warily, not quite believing him, expecting him to jump back on her at any moment. But he didn't, he just left her alone, and as the minutes ticked by, Jan got more and more confused.

This wasn't like Butch at all; the Butch she knew would take full advantage of every girl that he came across. And yet, here they were - she had been more than willing to dissociate from the situation and let him have his fun like a good wife should, and he had  _refused_.

Maybe she didn't know Butch at all. Maybe he was using this as another insult to her, she wouldn't put it past him.

He sighed through his nose. "Anyway, Suzie's better than you'd ever be."

Jan folded her arms over herself. She wasn't sure why exactly, but she had just assumed that Butch would have given up that relationship now that they were married. He had heard the Overseer as well as she had when the dear leader had warned against straying from the breeding plan. Now, Jan knew that there were preventive measures, she wasn't a complete innocent, but Butch had made a mistake before.

Jan could clearly remember Suzie's white-faced clinic visit three weeks after prom. She had just started to intern and when she had overheard her father saying that vault protocol stopped him from helping, she had slipped Suzie the drugs herself. Suzie had thanked her with a brittle smile that hadn't reached her blue eyes and reminded her that this didn't mean that they were friends.

Jan suddenly wondered if Butch had even known about that.

"You don't know that." She said softly, not liking the idea of letting him berate her even though she lacked the fire for a proper fight. This was just routine procedure.

Butch scoffed. "Whatever,  _virgin._ " He spat the word like it was the filthiest insult he could imagine. "Once, Freddie said he had you down near the reactor, but I knew you was too square for that."

Jan was shocked and she felt her face burning again, even though it was a pure lie. Why would Freddie make that up? Why would he make up a lie like that about  _her_? He was a nice guy.

"Yeah, well, maybe we did!" She said it a little shrilly.

Butch actually laughed. "Yeah, right, whatever you say, Nosebleed. Now can it, I want to sleep." He rolled back over onto his side abruptly. Evidently the conversation was over.

Jan frowned at being so rudely dismissed. "Well, what about the Overseer? He won't like you running around with Suzie."

"The Overseer can sit on it and spin. Now shut the fuck up."

Indignant, Jan flared her nostrils. Honestly, that wasn't her main worry. She couldn't care less about what or who Butch did in his spare time.

Her fear was that the Overseer would somehow know that they hadn't  _done it_. She had checked the whole apartment for bugs earlier, in a fit of pure paranoia, but she had found nothing. Logically she knew the Overseer wasn't an omnipotent being, no matter what the vault tried to indoctrinate her into believing, but he had a way of finding out the things people didn't want him to know about.

She huffed out a sigh, worried and wanting to voice her worry. "But what-"

He cut her off. "Can it, Janet." He was getting angry now, she could hear it. "I'm. Trying. To. Sleep."

Jan set her jaw into a hard line. Fine, if that was the way he was going to be. She wasn't sure why she had expected any different from him. Butch wanted her to be quiet? She would be quiet. She would ignore him. It's not like they had anything to say to each other anyway.

Mutual silence would probably be a beneficial living arrangement.

When Jan settled down to sleep, she put her pillow between them as a guard. She would have to sleep without, but she felt it was worth it. She didn't fully trust him, and she also didn't want to accidently touch him in her sleep. Even if it was only with her foot.

It also sent a message. It was another symbol.

Sleep did not come straight way, she was far too tense for that. It also didn't help that Butch snored, only softly but it was enough to ground down every last one of her nerves. It cancelled out the hum of the air-recycling unit which usually lulled her.

The cold air was still being pumped out and Jan fell asleep shivering under their blankets.

/\

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, honest reviews are appreciated!


	5. 5

**5.**

/\

At seven the next morning, when the alarm went off, Jan pretended to sleep through it.

She would rather not have to look at him; the possibility that Butch was going to be the first thing she saw in the morning for the rest of her life was a grim destiny, she felt, so Jan was willing to do anything to avoid her fate. Even if it meant pretending to sleep through an alarm that sounded more like a pre-war klaxon horn than a clock.

She felt him rise from the bed, she smelled him light up the first cigarette of the day and she heard the rustle of him getting into his jumpsuit. Still the alarm blared. Jan opened her eyes a crack, to check out the situation, and saw he was standing over the bed, staring at her with a confused expression on his face – that classic sneer and squint combo, mixed in with the most crinkled brow she had ever seen.

The alarm was still going.

Jan pressed her eyes shut quickly, hoping that he didn't see her looking. She was pretty annoyed that he had he was just lingering there, like a bad smell.

' _Go away, go away, go away. I don't want to see you. I don't want to look at your stupid face. Can't you just leave me alone for once in your life?'_ She thought petulantly.

Jan was not particularly concerned if she seemed childish. Avoiding each other and continuing with their former lives as if they had never been bound together seemed the best action for everyone concerned. They could just pretend that they weren't married at all, they could act like it never happened, just a vivid dual hallucination. She needed Butch to work with her on this one – silently she willed him to just walk to the bathroom and get on with his day – if he didn't acknowledge her, the ignoring would be mutually agreed. But if he spoke, he was just going to make it needlessly awkward, because she certainly wasn't going to answer him or even acknowledge him in anyway.

Was that childish? Was that wrong? Was she being selfish?

The alarm was still going.

' _Just turn it off and go away. You can manage that, right Butchie? Just go. Please just go.'_  Jan resolved never to call him 'Butchie' ever again, even in her own thoughts. It felt too … familiar somehow.

"Hey, Nosebleed, are ya fuckin deaf or somethin'?" Butch sounded as confused as he had looked, and a little concerned. Maybe he was worried that she had dropped dead in the night? Jan thought he was probably dumb enough to be fooled if she just held her breath for a couple minutes.

Oh the tragedy, the horror – a young bride dying of unknown causes on the very night of her wedding, fading out in the marriage bed as her brutish husband slept, her life extinguished, her potential wasted! So sad, so senseless! And then they'd throw her in the incinerator and all her problems would be over.

The incinerator was actually very attractive option. Especially as Butch had just done the unthinkable – he had spoken to her. He had chosen to disregard the chance for a quiet, alienated life; together yet apart. Jan was going to continue with her plan to ignore him and now it was going to be  _awkward_. All because of his choices.

The alarm was finally turned off. It sounded like Butch punched it too, just for good measure. She was glad it was the clock and not her.

"Hey. Come on. I know ya can hear me, Nosebleed." He was getting irritated now.

Jan didn't want to antagonise him for no reason, and she mentally mapped out where her jumpsuit was on the floor and worked out how quickly she could grab her pepper spray should he turn violent. Of course that was the last thing she wanted, but at the same time, she felt she had to send a message.

The message being: I don't want to communicate with you again in my lifetime – 'waking up' and acknowledging his presence wouldn't teach him that. She had to stand her ground.

Butch muttered under his breath. Jan's heart stuttered into double time as she heard his heavy footsteps walking around to her side of the bed. He grabbed a hold of her arm and hauled her off of the bed and dropped her, surprisingly gently on the metal floor. The cold seeped through her thin, white shirt and all the way into her core.

Jan had to bite her tongue to stifle the shout of surprise that threatened to bubble out of her throat. Just what was he trying to achieve with this? Did he really think that he could outsmart her? That he could shock her into a reaction?

Years of torment had made her familiar with his tactics and he obviously underestimated her commitment to silence.

Jan remained peacefully 'asleep' on the floor, with one leg caught up on the bed and the other stuck up in the air, her arms stretched above her head. There was a long pause, where Jan focused on keeping her breathing regular and soft. As time dragged by, the urge to laugh built up in her chest, threatening to burst forth at any moment – she could imagine perfectly his pissed expression, and the mental image was hilarious.

"Ok, be fuckin' childish then. Ignore me, it don't bother me. I ain't got nothin' to say to ya anyway."

Jan's lips twisted into a smirk against her will and he stomped out of the room. She stayed on the floor for another ten minutes with her eyes closed, listening to him slam things and curse. Eventually though, she could no longer hear his heavy-booted footsteps and assumed it was finally safe to go and get ready.

While she had been lying prone on the floor, she'd had some time to think about her actions and evaluate her behaviour. Jan realised that she had been behaving very strangely, by acceptable vault standards, and she truly hoped that Butch wouldn't tell anyone – she couldn't abide the idea of anybody knowing about her childish antics. They might think she was some sort of screwball.

Janet Harris ( _DeLoria_ ) was not a screwball. She was a perfectly well adjusted and productive young lady.

So, like a productive young lady, she finally dragged herself up off of the floor and made the bed, even though she was running out of time and would be late for work. She did not question her compulsion to clean. It's just what was expected of her.

After making sure the bed was neat and then everything was put away in its proper place, Jan moved on to the bathroom. A quick check of her pip-boy told her she had fifteen minutes to get ready and get over to the clinic, on the other side of the vault, for work. That meant it was going to be a messy hair day.

' _Make that a messier hair day, Janny. You can't control it even when you've got the time to tease it properly._ ' Jan's inner monologue was bitter. Nothing frustrated her more than her hair. She just couldn't  _do_  anything with it. And it had become more unruly in the past year – Butch was the vault's sole hairdresser now and she didn't trust him to not shave her head, or give her a shoddy cut on purpose, so she just hadn't bothered.

Two things shocked her when she walked into the tiny cube that was their bathroom.

First of all, there was the mess.

Butch was evidently a whirlwind in a jumpsuit, because the chaos he'd caused in the space of a few minutes was phenomenal. A half-empty, open tin of hair pomade sat open on the sink, with a greasy looking comb sticking out of the oil. There was hair  _everywhere_ ; it seemed Jan that there were more of Butch's thick, dark hairs in the sink and on the floor than on his head; obviously, he was shedding like a mangy animal. His dirty clothing had just been discarded, strewn on the grubby tiles of the floor.

Just looking at the mess made the pulse in her throat throb. It was disgusting. He was so gross. The fact that he was obviously expecting  _her_  to clean up after him … it was just too much. This was her future: collecting dirty socks up off the floor and picking clumps of greasy hair out of the plug hole.

Jan groaned. She resented cleaning up after him, but she couldn't just leave it either. She glanced at her pip-boy again – she was fast running out of time. Picking up Butch's debris would have to wait until after work, though the thought of leaving a job undone made her feel uneasy.

It was then she caught sight of her second shock of the morning. Jan moved to splash her face with cold water, that she saw her reflection in the battered mirror. Her stomach dropped coldly and she gasped. Her neck!

Butch DeLoria was not a man, he was a leech.

The bruise on her neck was a deep, dark purple and huge. He must have unhinged his jaw to achieve a radius like that, and of course it was in the most awkward place possible - the centre of her neck, far above the place her jumpsuit collar would reach. There would be no hiding it.

Jan stood on her toes to get a closer look at her reflection.

There was something undeniably raw and powerful about it, it was a mark of possession, synonymous with passion. Tentatively, she reached up to touch it and was surprised to find that it was sore, tender under her probing fingers. Jan thought it made her look different, it made her look more _amorous_.

She would have liked it, but then she considered the fact that Suzie was probably sporting a twin mark – it cheapened it, made it a mark of shame instead. Jan felt anger flare up in her, hot and blinding; it wasn't that she felt anything for Butch, but it was the principle of the thing. If he was insistent on continuing his debaucherous affair with Suzie, he could at least be discreet.

She severely doubted that Butch had the propensity for secrecy, but she hoped he would refrain from leaving any more marks. She would not be shamed by his obvious adultery, she would not have people talking about her behind her back, she refused to live with whispers following her down every corridor. Her pride wouldn't be able to stand it.

It was also dangerous. The Overseer would not react well to his breeding plan being so publically disobeyed.

As quickly as her anger came, it faded away to embers.

She was being silly. She was overreacting. Butch could do what he liked, she had no power over it or him and that's the way it should be.

Beatrice's voice, speaking from the past, came to her again. "It has been proven that when a husband leaves his home, he may be seeking refuge from an unpleasant environment. If your husband strays, you must ask yourself several questions, ladies. Could it be that your husband feels that he is not understood or appreciated in his own home? What might there be in your relations to him that could make him feel that way?"

Her pip-boy suddenly blipped and Jan jumped, head-butting the mirror in her surprise. She was late for work. Of course she was, it was going to be one of those days.

Jan pulled her hair into a messy bun, pulled on yesterday's jumpsuit and, having no time for anything else, ran out of the apartment. She almost collided with Suzie Mack ( _Gomez_ ).

Suzie's light blue eyes looked her up and down. Her sight lingered on the hickey, nostrils flaring in annoyance. "Where's Butch?" She demanded. "I need to speak to him. Now."

Jan's gaze was drawn to the other girl's neck. Her mark was just as dark, purple and huge and fresh. They were like twins. It left a bitter taste. "He's already gone. I don't know where he went."

Suzie smirked. "Oh, it's fine. I know where he went." She seemed to be enjoying this immensely. She turned to leave, but she couldn't avoid one more twist of the knife. "Freddie says hi. That boy is all hands, huh?"

/\

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so sort this time! Vault-tec approved brainwashing is bad! As always, honest reviews are appreciated.


	6. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, I'm sorry this too so long. I suck. Basically writers block came along and destroyed my brain for a little bit. I promise I'll be better from now on. In this chapter: the story actually progresses somewhat!

**6.**

/\

The month went by relatively quickly once they slipped into a routine: they would wake up and ignore each other, go to work, then Jan would come home to an empty apartment and she would go to bed, building a pre-emptive pillow wall for when Butch eventually rolled in smelling like beer and cigarettes.

It wasn't fun, but Jan was willing to live like this for the rest of her life if she had to, if that was what the Overseer demanded. She would do what he decreed because she had no choice, but she would make the least possible effort while doing it.

Fair's fair, after all.

Work wasn't even an escape for her anymore. Officially, she was only supposed to be training to be a nurse, as the role of doctor was not 'suitable' for a woman, but her ever progressive father had been teaching her everything he knew secretly. ("Just in case, sweetheart. You never know what might happen. The Overseer doesn't know what he's talking about, women are just as capable as men; your mother was a brilliant scientist.")

It had been exciting, secretly breaking the rules. It had been fun learning how to help people.  _Had_  being the operative word.

The Overseer had decided that, since the birth rate was about to boom, she was to train to be a midwife. Just a midwife and nothing else. She spent her days learning about the rip or cut, about crowning and dilation.

Every day was a prolonged panic attack.

Talking to Amata wasn't much of an option any more either. Her best friend and her husband had been given a comfortable family apartment in the main residential area; it had its own bathroom with an actual  _shower,_  two bedrooms and a full kitchen and living room. Amata and Wally slept in different rooms and were actually comfortable in their current situation.

Of course, Amata still didn't admit that she was getting special treatment.

She had always struggled to see it, though it was glaringly obvious and had been since they were young. Everyone else could see it and they all resented it – Amata just thought she was being unfairly picked on because she was the Overseer's daughter. The privileged can rarely see their privilege in relation to everyone else, so Jan could not find it in her heart to fully blame her friend for being the way she was.

That didn't make it any less irritating though – Jan couldn't stand to see her friend so comfortable and oblivious when she herself felt so cold and isolated and miserable.

Though Jan could handle being miserable, it wasn't that much of a big deal.

It was what came next could not be abided.

She returned home to an empty apartment, like she did every day. Butch had lost all interest in her, he didn't even acknowledge her anymore and that was perfectly fine with Jan; he hadn't been violent towards her so far, though that couldn't be counted as much of a victory when they had only been married a month. She felt invisible in her own home. Admittedly, Jan would much rather feel like a ghost than feel like a punching bag.

Butch had no time for her, he didn't even bother making fun of her. He was much more interested in drinking, running with his gang and 'spending time' with Suzie.

That was fine too, she just wished that he wouldn't come home with her baby pink lipstick still smeared all over his neck and his collar. It made her feel strangely hollow, which made her angry because she shouldn't feel anything about it at all.

Jan had often wondered, over those lonely weeks, if she should mention Suzie's comment about Freddie to Butch, but she ultimately decided that she didn't want to get him into trouble. She was pretty sure Butch would destroy Freddie in a fight if it came to it, and it  _would_ come to it.

It was more likely than not that Suzie was saying it just to get to Jan anyway; Freddie wouldn't slum it like that, and he would be absolutely insane to put his hands on his leader's girl, even if he was legally married to her.

The lights flickered on automatically when she entered the dingy, cramped apartment. Her own personal jail cell, albeit a spacious jail cell.

Her monthly wages had been left, still in the envelope, on the couch's arm. Butch had clearly taken his out with him already – he finished work a lot earlier than she did, so it was very rare for her to see him more than twice a day. She was honestly surprised he didn't take her wages with him – it seemed like something Butch DeLoria would do.

Clearly that boy was full of surprises.  _'He hasn't actually beaten me to death yet, and now he has neglected to steal my money!'_  She thought sarcastically. ' _He is practically an angel!'_  Jan smirked at her own joke and reached to pick up her earnings.

Of course, vault dwellers didn't get paid in actual money – pre-war currency was absolutely useless down there. At the end of every month, they were issued with Vault-Tec approved ration coupons, which could be swapped at the Ration Office for food and other necessities.

For those struggling with their finances, as many did, the Overseer, in all his benevolence, would provide free coffee (no milk, no sugar) in the diner – the caffeine would keep you working if nothing else would.

So it was with an intense horror that Jan realised that her wage packet was lighter than usual,  _a lot_ lighter. Her hands were already shaking as she opened the envelope to count the coupons.

Jan did not earn a lot as she was still just interning at the clinic, so she had always found it a little bit of a struggle before; but the amount she'd earned that month was half of her usual wage. Her heart was thundering in her chest – there must have been some kind of mistake. There was no way she could live off of this!

' _Shit shit shit shitting fucking shit.'_  She thought.

"Oh, golly gee!" She exclaimed out loud.

One hundred and fifteen coupons. One hundred and fifteen! She did a quick bit of arithmetic. That would get her three boxes of Fancy Lad Snack Cakes and a can of bean, or five cans of beans and some powdered milk, or even two boxes of powdered milk and seven boxes of Sugar Bombs. Add in some free coffee and she could make that work. Right? Maybe? Possibly?

' _Wrong, Janny and you know it.'_ Jan felt her throat tightening. She was really backed into a corner now. ' _And you need more than food. How are you going to wash your hair with no shampoo? What about toothpaste? What about perfume, you're going to stink.'_

Her brain began whirring over all of the things that she needed and her body started to tremble all over. She wouldn't be able to make this work, she was in real trouble.

Why had this happened? Jan tried to think over the last month – had she missed a few hours? No. Had she clocked out early? No. Had she broken any of the Overseer's rules? She didn't think that she had, it was hard to be certain because he had so many of them. She wouldn't have broken anything major, and even if she had, she doubted that a pay cut would be the only action taken against her.

She could not live off of one hundred and fifteen coupons for the next month, it was impossible.

Had Butch gotten the same wage cut? If not, then perhaps she could convince him to share his coupons with her?

' _Yeah right, good luck with that Janet._ ' She scolded herself. ' _He's too selfish to ever share anything with you. Remember when he took your sweet roll and pulled your hair because he was hungry? At your own birthday party? Yeah, never forget that. If you were on fire he wouldn't spit to put you out.'_

It was extremely unlikely that he was any better off than she was anyway; it was pretty obvious that she had done nothing to warrant a pay-cut, so she was pretty sure everyone was being treated the same.

Which could only mean one thing: she would have to break the comfortable silence and actually  _talk_ to Butch about budgeting. They wouldn't be able to survive the month if they didn't work together, like a normal married couple.

' _What a weird thought. Let's suppress that.'_

Jan's palms began to sweat at the idea of talking to him, her hand instinctively snaking towards her jumpsuit pocket, where the pepper spray sat. The feel of the cold metal cylinder in her palm grounded her.

She could do this. She didn't  _want_  to do it, but she could.

Butch wouldn't be back for a long while, he usually rolled in about fifteen minutes after curfew (everything he did, it seemed, needed to be punctuated by acts of small rebellion), and so she had some time to work out some things in her head. That was good, Jan found it easier to talk people and grasp a situation if she had time to mentally prepare.

She found herself thinking of the  _why_ of the situation again. It just didn't make any sense.

* * *

' _Would he really do such a thing?'_

Of course, it was so obvious now.

Jan was stretched out on the couch, running her hand through her hair, pulling at the roots. It was out of its usual tight bun and the amber curls reached past her shoulders and sprung up towards the ceiling. Every time she brought her hands away, more and more strands of hair pulled away with them.

' _That absolute bastard! We are living in a dictatorship! He has no right!'_

Jan sat up and counted out the coupons for the thousandth time, knowing full well that there would only be one hundred and fifteen there. She couldn't believe that she had forgotten, she couldn't believe that she had taken his promise at face value.

Every offer the Overseer made was trick, he was a deceitful snake.

He had promised to provide double the amount of ration coupons when a girl involved in the project became pregnant, what he neglected to mention that he would be halving the income beforehand. Jan could have punched herself for not working it out sooner, of course the Overseer would not give extra money for nothing! He just wanted to make his evil little scheme sound like a good thing, when it was, in fact, the ultimate catalyst for making kids who hated each other jump into bed.

The reality of the situation felt like a knife in her gullet. They would only be able to earn a living wage if she was pregnant.

Jan wasn't sure why she was so shocked, it just seemed so … inhumane. It was hard to believe that anyone was capable of being so callous, even the Overseer.

Jan's head snapped towards the door when she heard it swish open. In staggered Butch, a lot earlier than expected.

His face was a mess; one eye was swollen, already half-way to a black eye, his lip was split and his nose was gushing blood. Somehow, through it all, he kept up his smirk and swagger.

"Butch!" Jan exclaimed, jumping up off of the couch in genuine alarm. Her hands fluttered instinctively to her pocket. "What's happened to your face?"

"Ha! You should see the other guy!" Butch exclaimed with bravado.

Jan paused, uncertain. "I … uh, what?"

The smile died on his torn lips, and he brought his arm up to wipe his bloodied nose on his leather sleeve. "You said it wrong. You was supposed to say that I looked bad, and then I'd say that an' it'd sound cool."

Jan tried to keep the smile that threatened to tug at her lips hidden – the idea that Butch had rehearsed the conversation in his head was actually kind of sweet, and relatable. She didn't like the idea of finding humanizing qualities in her childhood bully.

He was dripping blood all over the floor, big, fat dime-sized dots – she'd have to clean that up later. They didn't have a mop, she was going to have to scrub on her hands and knees.

Jan felt herself slip into nurse-mode, despite her weariness. She was a professional, after all. "Sit down and pinch your nose. I'll get a cloth."

She disappeared into the bathroom. She searched in the cabinet under the sink and brought out a clean cloth, which she ran under the cold faucet. This would be a lot easier than just talking, she could focus on patching him up and nursing came as second nature.

/\

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again that it took so long. As always, honest reviews are appreciated.


	7. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've realized recently that my chapters seem to be getting shorter and shorter and that they also don't feel like complete chapters when you read them? Like several of my chapters could have been condensed into one if I really tried? I'm so flaky. So I'm declaring this story flake free from now on!

**7.**

/\

Jan soaked the cloth for a while, trying to get it as cold as possible – Butch's nose looked to be broken and pressing something cold against the break would be soothing. In the clinic they used ice packs but it was out of hours now and Jan wouldn't be able to pick one up until morning; the Overseer was stingy with everything, but he was obsessive about medical supplies. He didn't even trust his medical staff not to pilfer them away in the night, so he set up an alarm system that could only be turned off by himself.

Things still went missing, but they all knew better than to accuse the Overseer of stealing painkillers. To accuse the Overseer of mortal flaws and vices was practically blasphemy in the vault, he was a blameless man, protector of all. Who needed God when there was Alphonse Almodovar?

When the water was cold enough to numb her hands, Jan twisted the cloth to get rid of the excess water and returned to the living room. Butch was sprawled on the battered couch, covering his nose with his blood-crusted hands. She could see that his knuckles were busted open and raw too – it must have been some fight for him to be such a mess.

"You're supposed to be pinching your nose, to stop the blood flow. You'll stain the couch." Jan found herself chastising him before her brain could step in and filter her mouth. The couch had already been stained and battered beyond repair when they had moved in, but that wasn't the point – she was trying to keep what they had been given as pristine and homely as possible and she knew for a fact that he wouldn't be the one who was expected to wash out the blotches of blood.

"I was!" He said indignantly, voice muffled by his hands. "It just fuckin' hurt. You're tryin' to kill me or somethin'."

Jan had to close her eyes and focus on her breathing for a moment to save herself from snapping. Why did he have to be so childish all the time? Why did he have to make everything such a trial? She managed to muster up her most cheerful professional-nurse voice, complete with a calm half-smile. "Of course it's going to hurt if you squeeze the wrong part. You're supposed to go like this." She demonstrated, pinching the soft part of her nose, just above her nostrils.

Butch mimicked her. "You should of told me that first." He said sulkily.

She handed the cloth to him. He smelled like warm beer and iron. "Press this onto the swelling. You'll need to every hour for about ten minutes for the next couple of days, though it might be a better idea to come to the clinic for an ice pack." Jan moved hovered a few steps away, trying to get a closer look without getting  _close_.

She wasn't certain if the nose was broken - it didn't look deformed, but it was certainly bleeding a lot.

Butch was dabbing at his face with the cloth, which had already gone a dark, gory red. His lip was bleeding a little too; it looked like he had bitten it himself. Jan sat down on the coffee table, opposite him, moving her body to and fro, trying to get a 360 degree view of his nose. Butch watched her, eyes flicking to and fro as he followed her movements. He looked as pissed off and confused as ever.

It was impossible to get a proper diagnosis without having a feel though.

Jan was a professional. She could do this. No big deal.

"Can I?" Without waiting for an answer, she tentatively reached over and pressed, as gently as possible, on the bridge of his nose. It made a horrible, wet crunching nose and Butch yelped. Yes, it was definitely broken.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Butch demanded. He batted her hand away angrily. He leapt to his feet, towering above her, hands covering his broken nose protectively. "Why did ya do that for?"

Jan scrambled away from him, nearly tripping over the coffee table. "I'm sorry! I just needed to see if it was broken or not. I didn't mean to hurt you." She stuttered, the words falling from her mouth in a mixed garble. Her heart was thundering in her chest, she really didn't want to get hit.

Butch's rage subsided as suddenly as it had sprung up, his blue eyes softening into something new, something she wasn't sure how to interpret. But it was a soft look, one that she wasn't as afraid of. "Why do you always do that?"

His voice was as gentle as she had ever heard it; Jan had never realised that he had an emotional range beyond angry and confused. "Why do you always flinch like that?"

Jan tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but her mouth was too dry and she couldn't do it. She eyed him wearily before answering, a hand on the can of mace in her pocket. Was this a trick? Was he trying to lull her into a false sense of security?

"Well," she began, her voice small and hoarse, "it wasn't that long ago you were throwing me into lockers and pulling my hair."

Butch looked down at his blood crusted hands, it had begun to dry up, leaving the dark rust-colored marks. His knuckles still looked raw and weeping; he winced as he opened and closed his fists. "I ain't gonna hurt ya." He mumbled it, raising his eyes so that she could see that he was being sincere. "Any guy who hits his old lady is a coward."

Jan wanted to believe him, she really did. The hurt ran deep, there were too many years of torment, and it was better to be cautious than trusting. He obviously believed what he was saying, if that meant anything, so Jan was willing to give him a chance to prove himself.

Just one chance.

She was going to have to train herself not to flinch whenever he came near her, though. Or spoke to her. Or looked in her direction.

Jan forced a thin, fake smile onto her face. "Ok, Butch." She couldn't bring herself to declare a trust that was not really there, but it seemed enough for him.

Butch slumped back down on the couch. His nose had stopped bleeding so much, but it was beginning to visibly swell.

Slowly, still a little shaken, Jan backed away to the other side of the room, to the drawers that the decrepit microwave was perched upon; she had bought some aspirin the week before, back when she had enough money to afford luxury items like store bought medicine. Simpler times, golden and free, where a girl could life without having to worry about starving.

"Hey, Nosebleed, grab me a beer while ya over there."

Jan was free to roll her eyes seeing that she had her back turned to him. "You shouldn't mix alcohol with aspirin." She said flatly. Did he want to suffer? Did he enjoy pain?

"I don't want any aspirin." He said bluntly, clearly annoyed that she was attempting to deny him his one true vice. She would have thought, growing up in his household, with a mother like Ellen, that it would have put him off of the stuff for life.

Maybe that was just Jan being judgemental. Only  _slightly_  judgemental; Ellen DeLoria had earned herself quite a colorful reputation over the years.

"It's an anti-inflammatory so it'll help with the swelling of your nose." Jan adopted her most patient, sickeningly upbeat Nurse's Voice. It was the tone she kept hidden for particularly difficult patients, the ones who wouldn't take their pills, the ones who were rude to her, the ones who spoke down to her because she was a woman (and, boy, where there plenty of them). "Mixing it with alcohol could mess with your stomach lining. You don't want your stomach to start bleeding too, do you?"

"Well, you can go an' fuck your aspirin because I'm already drunk." He said it with triumph, like he'd won something. Jan heard him flip open his lighter, and the stink of cigarette smoke filled the small room. "So  _you_  can just get me another beer."

Jan threw the bottle of tablets back in the drawer, slamming it shut a little harder than she had to. They hadn't exactly been arguing, but she still felt like she had lost. Somehow. She was the medical professional here, she knew what was best for him, if he would just listen to her – though she couldn't deny that he'd got her on this one. She couldn't make him take them with the knowledge that it'd make him ill, maybe even kill him. That just wouldn't be ethical!

Jan, ever the dutiful housewife, went to open the fridge. The sight that met her made her blanch. Every single shelf was filled with bottles, mostly beer but there was some whiskey and vodka mixed up in there too. '

_Are you supposed to keep spirits cold?'_ She asked herself. ' _Wait, that doesn't even matter right now. Where did all this come from?'_

"Where did all this come from?" She asked out loud, turning to look at Butch. "We didn't have this much earlier." There had been perhaps a couple of bottles in the back; there had been so much empty space because pay day was usually ration collection day.

He looked at her like she was stupid; he was squinting slightly, the smoke from the lit cigarette that hung from his lips was getting in his eyes. " _I_  didn't have that much earlier." He corrected. "And  _I_ have more now because  _I_ went out after work and bought that shit."

Jan felt winded. She'd been so distracted by his broken face that she had forgotten to ask. "How much did you get paid today?" She asked in a thin voice.

Butch sat forward in his seat, grumbling, clearly remembering something that had pissed him off. "Not enough. Something must have got fucked up because I barely got anythin'. Just enough for that," he pointed at the fridge, "this," he pulled out a fresh packet of cigarettes from his jacket and flung them onto the coffee table," and this." The last thing was a single can of pomade, from his jumpsuit pocket.

Jan felt her knees getting weak. "You spent all of it?" Her voice was getting thinner and weaker. She could not, she would not, believe that he had wasted his half already. Not when they desperately needed to band together to be able to eat. Not when she was so relying on him to not be an idiot, just this one time - that was all she needed, that was all she asked.

He looked at her with a small sneer. "Yeah? So?" He was getting defensive.

Jan wanted to scream.

' _Is God testing me? Is this a holy trial?'_ She had been brought up in a scientific household, she had been raised to believe in no higher power – something that had marked her and her father as social pariahs until James had finally given in and made her attend the chapel, if only to keep up appearances – but in this moment, it felt like someone had stacked up all the odds against her.

' _Jesus, if you're real and you can hear me, please lay off with the punishments. I get it. I'm sorry for only pretending to pray and just mouthing the words to the hymns._ ' She thought desperately.

Jan let out a shaky sigh. "I'm only asking because the Overseer has changed the rules." She said, trying to placate him, trying to make him see who the real problem was. Which was to say: not her. If Butch was going to be angry, it shouldn't be with her. "There hasn't been a mess up. He's paying us less now."

"What the fuck? Why?" Butch shot the words out like bullets; it all came out like one word 'whatthefuckwhy?'

She gave him a sarcastic little smile. "Remember when he said we'd get double pay when I got pregnant? Well, what he actually meant was that he was going to half our money until then, so we get what we usually would earn when I am… in that state." Her ' _when'_  came out a little wobbly; as if in retaliation to the very idea, her whole body started to shake again. "Or if." She added that quietly, more to herself and to him. It was nice to pretend that she still had a choice.

"Evil bastard." Butch said, stubbing his cigarette out on the coffee table. He left it there, sticking up out of the scratched and battered metal, smouldering softly.

They had so few things in common, it was nice to have something in mutual hatred. Hatred could create quite a powerful bond; she and Amata had no more than two things in common, but they shared a lot of hate and it was  _that_  that kept the friendship going.

"So…" Butch leaned back, smiling. It looked vaguely obscene on his beaten up face. "I ain't big on the idea of starving to death. So we might as well get on with it." He grabbed on his couch, smirking up at her all the while. He was clearly thinking with his dick  _again_. And he obviously hadn't quite grasped how dire their situation was.

Jan felt herself get pale. She wanted to remind him that it was his fault that they couldn't afford to feed themselves, but fear had made her tongue-tied. Her mind was racing.

She supposed that it was inevitable really. She could keep putting it off and putting it off but it would have to happen eventually. The Overseer had her, had all the other girls, truly cornered. There was no way out of this one.

Jan just wished it would be a little more special. She had always imagined her first time being something romantic and natural, not Butch DeLoria inseminating her so that they could afford to eat. That was neither romantic nor natural, but perhaps she could close her eyes and pretend – that had been the advice in her 'Good Housewives Guide'.

It was just sad that yet another childish dream of hers had been shattered. The first being the dream of being able to make her own choices (ha ha). The second being partnered up with Freddie Gomez.

' _Freddie!'_  She interrupted her own thoughts with a revelation. ' _Yes! He might not agree. It's worth a try though. I'm sure if I can convince him, he can help me.'_

"No!" Jan exclaimed suddenly. Butch's smirk faded and was replaced by a frown. "I, uh, I'm going to try something else first."

"Whatever." He clearly didn't take rejection well. "Are you goin' to get me that beer or not?"

Jan suddenly realised that she had been standing in front of an open refrigerator; she felt strangely alienated from herself every time she forgot where she was like that. She got him a bottle, which was already weeping from being out of the cold for so long, and left it on the coffee table.

Butch opened it with his teeth and Jan was secretly quite impressed.

She left him to drink and escaped to the bedroom, thankfully alone. She quite forgot about the blood on the floor that she needed to clean, that was a job that would have to wait for another day.

Jan set up the bed, putting all the pillows on Butch's side – he needed to keep his head elevated. She secretly applauded herself for being such a selfless person and such a dedicated healthcare professional. She would have to do without the pillow wall for the next few days; Jan was sure she could manage as long as she lay as far away from him as possible without falling off the side.

Jan stripped down to her plain white shirt and shorts and slipped between the sheets. It was easy to drift off without Butch's snoring ringing in her ears, and the gentle rattling hum of the air recycling unit was soothing.

Butch woke her up a little time later – not by accident either, he really went out of his way. At first she began to panic when she felt his hands on her, but it was a lot more innocent than it seemed.

"Why I've got so many pillows?" He demanded. His warm, sour beer breath washed over her, he'd obviously had a lot more to drink after she left. "I can't sleep if up all folded up like a … uh …" Butch wasn't able to finish his own simile so he left it hanging.

Jan sat up on her elbows, still groggy. "It'll help your nose if you sleep upright." She said slowly, waiting for her brain to switch back on.

"Oh." That seemed a good enough explanation to him. He settled in to his side, pretty much sitting up. He tried to drag most of the covers off of her; the Overseer was still pumping cold air into the lower apartments, so it was always freezing.

Jan, still half-asleep, lay back down, not quite registering that half of her was exposed to the cold. "What actually happened to your face anyway?" She asked. Her eyelids felt like lead weights. She had meant to ask earlier, but it had slipped her mind.

Butch grunted. "Can it, Janet, some people are trying to sleep here."

Janet canned it.

She fell asleep reflecting on how much she preferred being called her full name to being called Nosebleed. She wished that he would do it more often.

/\

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I got their interactions right; I tried to keep Butch as in character as possible, because he is a bit of an ass. I just hope it came across ok. As always, honest reviews are welcome. P.S I'm sorry if I use the semicolon too often, I just like them.


	8. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realised that I've been spelling Susie Mack's name wrong this whole time. How embarrassing for me. So it's my own personal headcanon that she started spelling it with a 'z' because she thought it looked more exotic.

**8.**

/\

"No fucking way, Janet."

Jan grimaced at his bluntness. She was hoping he'd be a little more pliable, but she wasn't out of ideas just yet. She put on her best pout and puppy dog eyes. "Please Freddie Bear?"

Freddie blushed a bright red at her old nickname for him, but he softened too. His big, dark doe eyes lost their edge of hostility.

Freddie Gomez had the distinction of being the only person in the history of Vault 101 to fail the G.O.A.T, a test that was, by its very nature, impossible to fail. It's not that he failed to complete the assessment - which had been done many times before by 'rebels' who thought they could beat the system - he had answered every last question, it was just that his answers all conflicted with each other in such a way that it was impossible to Mr Brotch to place him on any career path. His test scores had had to be sent off for special consideration by the Overseer himself.

Of course the Overseer was far too busy to put any real effort into the placement and Freddie was dumped in the Ration Office, which had gained the reputation over many generations as the home of the burn-outs and poor performers. It wasn't a difficult job – there were no shelves to stack, or products to display; Ration Office workers just sat at their desks and waited for customers to come in, then they accepted their ration coupons and went into the storage room to collect their items.

It was boring and repetitive and lonely. He wasn't the only one who worked there, he was just the only one who actually turned up. Ellen DeLoria was often too drunk to go to work, and Freddie, poor sweet Freddie, would cover for his leader's mother.

"Netty," he rubbed the back of his head, messing up the perfectly slicked back dark hair so that it stuck up at the back, "I don't know about this." No one else but him had ever called her Netty, in truth she didn't really like the nickname, but hearing him say it now made her weak with nostalgia. They had only dated for a month and three weeks, but that was a long time for kids like them and it still meant a lot to her now.

She thought it would mean a lot to her forever, the books she had read had always said that the first love was the most important. Which made what she was trying to do to him so much worse in her eyes.

Jan felt like shit. But she was hungry, and hungry people did desperate things. Like manipulate one of the few people in the vault that actually liked her for extra food.

"Come on Freddy Bear, you owe me. Remember Movie Night?"

Movie Night was a rare and extremely anticipated occasion for everyone in the Vault – it was the only time that the Overseer allowed any pre-war media to be shown; the atrium was set up like a movie theatre with the big screen and rows of seats.

It rarely happened – Jan could only remember three Movie Nights in her entire life because it all depended on the whim of the Overseer, and he didn't like frivolity or anything that could cause a distraction from work. Hard work was happy work after all, once you had been given work that should sustain your happiness for the rest of your days.

But Amata liked the movies, so for special occasion he granted her wishes, in a very begrudging and restricted way – the screenings always consisted of two movies, separated in the middle by (bizarrely) pre-war news reels, and movie-goers were granted one free bottle of Nuka cola on entry but all other snack and drinks were charged at double their usual cost. Entry cost a full three ration stamps too, as an added deterrent.

It still didn't put people off, as the Overseer had obviously intended. Movie nights had a feeling of festivity about them that even Christmas couldn't match.

The particular Move Night Jan was thinking off was the one that coincided with Amata's fifteenth birthday. Towards the end of 'Some Like It Hot', Jan had allowed Freddie to touch her left boob for a full minute before moving his hand back up to her shoulder.

Freddie's grinned goofily and he let out a low chuckle. "Yeah … yeah, man, that was pretty wild." His thick brows knitted together. "I don't see how that means I owe you, though."

"Well," Jan leaned over his desk, looming over him, putting on her best coy face, "if you help me out, we could do that again. Or maybe even  _more_ stuff." Jan lowered her eyes to her hands as she felt herself blushing furiously; a full body blush, radiating as hot as an atom bomb. So much for being a decent girl. So much for respecting herself. So much for being a good wife.

It was like she was putting a middle finger up to everything she had ever been taught. She felt guilty and ashamed, but deep down (in a place she would never admit to existing), she felt pretty damn good.

Or she felt pretty good until she raised her eyes and saw Freddie's horrified face.

"But, you're the boss man's old lady!" He spluttered. "His  _old lady,_ Netty. I would never touch the boss's old lady."

"Stop calling me an old lady, Freddie." Jan stopped leaning on the desk and took a sudden interest in the zip of her jumpsuit; she felt totally humiliated by his _very_  enthusiastic refusal – maybe she had been naïve to assume that it would work, that she still actually meant anything to him after all that time. Obviously she had misread all of his flirtations over the years.

' _Obviously they weren't actually flirtations, stupid little Janny. He's probably been laughing at you with those stupid Tunnel Snakes for years. Butch probably put him up to it, just like when he got Freddie to dump you in front of everybody.'_ She thought bitterly. ' _And you fell for it, hook, line and sinker.'_

Freddie stopped looking at her and went back to running his hands through his hair. He had always done that when he was nervous, but he was really messing up his slicked back look – Jan thought he was beginning to look a little like a mad scientist. "Look, I mean, you're a real knock out gal and everything, but I just  _can't_." He paused in his assault on his hair, as if he suddenly realised what he was doing. He pulled a comb out of the front pocket of his jacket and started to obsessively groom instead.

"Like seriously, you're a  _knock out gal._ " He stressed. Jan smiled despite herself – maybe her self-doubt and anxiety had made her jump to the wrong conclusion. He glanced up at her nervously and quickly looked away. "But the Overseer has other ideas for us. And Butch would probably break my fingers."

Jan laughed at that. "No he wouldn't. He really doesn't care about what I do."

Freddie furrowed his brow. "Maybe. I don't know." He said uncertainly. "But it's the principle. You belong to him now so I can't do nothing even if I want to. It's a respect thing, like a protocol."

Jan bristled. ' _Belong? Oh, so he is an asshole after all.'_

She tried to not to snap, Freddie was just parroting what he had been taught, but she resented being talked about like she was a possession. And that was a hypocritical code of conduct anyway, when Butch was still doing whatever he wanted with Suzie.

' _Maybe he doesn't know?'_  The thought was an uncomfortable one. Should Jan be the messenger on that revelation?

Yes, she absolutely should. She was not a thing to be owned.

"But Freddie," she said sweetly, "what about Butch and Suzie?" She watched him carefully, but he showed no signs of surprise or distress, he just kept on combing and combing and combing. The motion of the fine-toothed comb separating the hair, thick and heavy-looking with product, was oddly hypnotic, as soothing to watch and it was to do. No wonder Freddie did it so much.

"Nah, that's different. He was there first." Freddie dismissed.

"How is it different? Our situations are the same." Jan was confused. His reasoning was flawed. "She's still your ' _old lady'_."

Freddie stopped combing and gave a heavy sigh. "Yeah, but Suzie was his best gal first. And it ain't the same because I broke it off with you  _ages_ ago. It's simple, see?"

Freddie had been slated as stupid for as long as she could remember, and Jan had always defended him (not everyone was great at exams, some people are smart in non-academic ways, he's a creative thinker not a logical thinker). For the first time in her life she was beginning to see what everyone else saw.

Freddie Gomez was a pretty dumb guy.

She felt strangely disappointed.

"So, you really don't mind?" Jan asked; she was still really struggling to grasp what it was that he was saying. She belonged to Butch so Freddie wouldn't touch her, and then Suzie also belonged to Butch and Freddie wouldn't touch her either and he was fine with that?

"Nah, I don't mind." He smirked. "Wally minded a lot when he found out though."

Jan had wondered who had smashed up Butch's face; she couldn't say she was surprised. Those two had been fighting for years - Wally was the main source of contention in that gang, Paul and Freddie were more than happy to follow their 'boss'. It had never been that bad before though, usually just heated words, maybe a black eye. She supposed it was different this time because it involved his sister, although the Mack siblings never seemed all that close before.

Jan had to admit she was curious about what had changed.

"But Wally doesn't even like Suzie, does he?" Jan asked, trying to affect a disinterested air. "What made him change his mind?"

Freddie looked glad that she had asked. He pointed his comb at her. "Butch didn't tell you?"

Jan shook her head. "No, he was too busy … bleeding on everything." Mentally she kicked herself; she'd forgotten to mop the floor again this morning. What sort of home was she running? A blood-stained one, apparently. It just wouldn't do. Beatrice would be appalled.

"Well, we was all playing cards at Wally's place. And-"

"Wait, was Amata there?" Jan cut in.

"Uh, yeah, but she was in her room though." Freddie side eyed her, annoyed that he's been interrupted. Jan couldn't help but scoff - of course, Amata had the privilege of her  _own room_ , a safe space of her own to escape to. But she still didn't think being the Overseer's daughter granted her any special treatment.

"Anyway," Freddie continued, "we was all playing cards and stuff, drinking and stuff, you know. Then Suzie disappears to the 'bathroom' or whatever, and then Butch disappears too and they're gone for a really, really long time and Wally was getting really fucking pissed off because he was winning. So he went looking for 'em and found them fucking in his own bed." Freddie laughed. "Like really going for it, really-"

"Yeah, ok, I get the picture." Jan surprised herself with how forceful and irritated she sounded. It wasn't that she was upset, not really, what they did had no real effect on her and her life. Butch was more than welcome to continue his little relationship, it was not a problem for her at all – Jan just didn't want to know all the fine little details about their tryst.

Freddie gave her a blank look. "Are you ok Netty?"

"Yes!"

He flinched. "Ok!" Freddie paused, nervously licking his lips. "Anyway, Wally punched him in the face and then they were beating the shit out of each other before me and Paul could stop them."

An uncomfortable silence descended. Jan was still struggling to understand why Wally would react like that when he so obviously didn't like his sister. She was still struggling to understand how Freddie was so ok with it. She didn't understand his and Suzie's relationship at all, especially after what Suzie said to her that first morning.

" _That boy's all hands, huh?"_

Jan tightened her lips, old hurt resurfacing – she had no right to be upset, but she wasn't about to let that stop her. Jan felt bitterness twist up inside her. Either Suzie was lying, or Freddie was. Suzie was a bitch, sure, but Jan had found, with personal experience, that she preferred to devastate with the truth. She needed to find out.

"So you and Suzie aren't…. you know." Jan gestured with her hands, almost suggestively but not quite.

Freddie glared. "No! For fuck's sake Janet! What did I just say?"

Jan inspected her nails – they were chewed back and chipped, the skin broken and dry around the cuticle (in short, they were an absolute disaster) – and feigned an air of nonchalance. "That's not what she told me."

What she wanted was a denial, or a look of anger at her audacity, or a dismissive laugh. Instead, Freddie got a little bit pale – he was well known for suffering anxiety, he was a jittering bag of raw nerves that could not conceal what he was feeling. He shouldn't take up poker any time soon.

Jan's feeling of disappointment grew. And with it grew the sensation of being wronged, somehow.

Freddie gave her a weak, trembling smile. "I don't know what you're talking about, Netty." He was beginning to sweat, a slight greasy sheen spreading across his upper lip.

' _And still he tries to get out of it.'_ She thought, numbly. ' _He tries to lie to my face even though he's shit at lying.'_

"Yes you do." She retorted, flatly. "So much for the  _protocol._ "

"Don't tell Butch!" Freddie begged, his voice cracking. "We gotta do it, Netty. Overseer's orders. It's for the best and he has a plan for all of us." He paused, nervously running his tongue over his lips. Jan could see his pulse throbbing at his throat; she knew that feeling well, but she tried not to sympathise. "Do you think you're the only one who got less coupons this month? If you're smart you'll just get it over with too!"

Jan watched him with a calm that surprised her. Her earlier attempts at cheating the system had fallen flat, but Freddie had just unwittingly given her new ammunition. It was just a question of whether she would allow herself to use it.

Jan was not malicious by nature; her father had raised her to be better than that. He had always said that there were enough terrible things in the world, why add her actions to the troubles – it was an idea that she tried to live by, it was something she believed in.

It was hard though; she would not pretend to be perfect, she was just an extremely flawed human being with a lot of emotions. Jan had just taught herself to put a filter on her mouth and to keep her poisonous thoughts and urges to herself.

The bitchiest thing she'd ever allowed herself to do was to tell Butch about Amata's weight problem. She'd only done it because she and her best friend had had a huge argument about Freddie a few days before; he'd asked her to the post-G.O.A.T prom, after viciously dumping her only a few weeks earlier, and Amata, speaking over Jan, had shot him down.

Of course Amata had found out and Jan's actions had caused something of a rift between them, something subtle but always present, like a weakness of trust, and it was something that would never really heal. Being a bitch caused a lot of hurt.

But for the second time in her life, Jan decided to be a bitch.

"Oh Freddie Bear," she said softly, "Butch is going to be so upset.""

Freddie was thin and lanky, built more for speed than fighting. Butch would beat the shit out of him if it came to it, and Freddie knew that all too well. The threat was implicit.

He pressed his lips into a thin line. "Please don't."

Jan fought to keep herself cold and distant as she watched those doe-like eyes she liked so much fill up with tears. "Well, there is a way around it." She reached into her jumpsuit pocket, and pulled out some ration coupons. She fanned them out and spread them out on his desk. It was half of what she had. "Just get me all the food this can buy and then throw in a couple of extras, and I'm sure I can keep my mouth shut."

Freddie lowered his eyes to the coupons and screwed up his face in thought. It looked like it was causing him some pain. "The Overseer will kill me when he finds out." He said it in a small voice.

"He won't find out." Jan said, trying to suppress her own uncertainty.

Freddie still wouldn't look at her. For a few moments Jan just stood there, in a tense and silent stand-off. Jan felt her confidence and conviction slip away with every strained second – she tried to suppress a growing need to apologise, to play it off as a joke of bad-taste.

This wasn't her, she wasn't like this. What was she doing?

Before she could give voice to her change of heart, Freddie snatched up the coupons. He kept his eyes lowered. "Stay here. I'll be right back."

She watched him disappear into the store room with the seed of guilt already blossoming in her stomach. ' _It's for the best.'_  A small voice in her head argued. ' _You have no other choice. Unless you want a little person kicking you from the inside. You'll die if you let that happen Jan. You'll die.'_

At that unwelcome thought, Jan's heart started to thunder in her chest. This was in her best interests; she just needed to remember that.

/\

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long. Writing is hard. Well it's not so much the writing as translating my ideas into prose. As always, honest reviews are appreciated.


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